Display / print all rows of a tibble (tbl_df)

Question

tibble (previously tbl_df) is a version of a data frame created by the dplyr data frame manipulation package in R. It prevents long table outputs when accidentally calling the data frame.

Once a data frame has been wrapped by tibble/tbl_df, is there a command to view the whole data frame though (all the rows and columns of the data frame)?

If I use df[1:100,], I will see all 100 rows, but if I use df[1:101,], it will only display the first 10 rows. I would like to easily display all the rows to quickly scroll through them.

Is there either a dplyr command to counteract this or a way to unwrap the data frame?

Solution 1

You could also use

print(tbl_df(df), n=40)

or with the help of the pipe operator

df %>% tbl_df %>% print(n=40)

To print all rows specify tbl_df %>% print(n = Inf)

edit 31.07.2021: in > dplyr 1.0.0

Warning message:
`tbl_df()` was deprecated in dplyr 1.0.0.
Please use `tibble::as_tibble()` instead.

df %>% as_tibble() %>% print(n=40)

Solution 2

You can use as.data.frame or print.data.frame.

If you want this to be the default, you can change the value of the dplyr.print_max option.

options(dplyr.print_max = 1e9)

Solution 3

The tibble vignette has an updated way to change its default printing behavior:

You can control the default appearance with options:

options(pillar.print_max = n, pillar.print_min = m): if there are more than n rows, print only the first m rows. Use options(pillar.print_max = Inf) to always show all rows.

options(pillar.width = n): use n character slots horizontally to show the data. If n > getOption("width"), this will result in multiple tiers. Use options(pillar.width = Inf) to always print all columns, regardless of the width of the screen.

examples

This will always print all rows:

options(pillar.print_max = Inf)

This will not actually limit the printing to 50 lines:

options(pillar.print_max = 50)

But this will restrict printing to 50 lines:

options(pillar.print_max = 50, pillar.print_min = 50)

Solution 4

As detailed out in the bookdown documentation, you could also use a paged table

mtcars %>% tbl_df %>% rmarkdown::paged_table()

This will paginate the data and allows to browse all rows and columns (unless configured to cap the rows). Example:

Solution 5

you can print it in Rstudio with View() more convenient:

df %>% View()

View(df)

View more solutions

Comments

[G. Grothendieck]

View is unchanged with "tbl_df" objects.

[Meg]

@G.Grothendieck Viewing is different than printing.

[ClaytonJY]

if you want don't want to worry about the value of n and you're already piping, you can use df %>% tbl_df %>% print(n = nrow(.))

[seasmith]

Extending @BLT's answer, you can set n = Inf to print all rows.

[Zhe Zhang]

print (with a tibble) also has the width = and n_extra = options to control how many columns are printed, either directly or indirectly.

[Dannid]

This will change the default behavior for all tibbles. I was looking for a way to override the default constraint. print(n=100) appears to do what I want. (Summary tables from count(), for example, should display in their entirety, whereas I do want my data tables to be truncated.)

[BLT]

@dannid looks like you want the accepted answer, then.

[Dannid]

@ClaytonJY I've also found tbl_df %>% print(n = Inf) to work for this.

[Agile Bean]

does anybody know whyprint(n = ...) turns on scientific notation in the tibble display?

[Arthur Small]

As described in that documentation: If the paged table is generated by a code chunk in an R Notebook, you can add the parameter rows.print=[n] to the chunk options to control the number of rows displayed per page.

[stucash]

bear in mind that if you choose to do print(n=nrow(.)), you need to have an object in hand first; if you are retrieving data from remote data source (e.g. a database connection), you'll have to do df <- tbl(conn, "db_name"); df %>% print(n=nrow(.)).

[petzi]

"As of tibble 3.1.0, printing is handled entirely by the pillar package." (From the "Printing tibbles" help file.) To control the default appearance with options you can use: options(pillar.print_max = n, pillar.print_min = m).

[BLT]

@petzi amazing, thanks for flagging. I believe I've updated it to reflect the latest in the tibble vignette.

[ah bon]

After running this code, do you know how to disable it? Thanks.

[PatrickT]

This is great for html output, but obviously won't work for pdf.

[Chris]

The really useful nugget in the center of that is the n argument to the print function.

[Patrick Coulombe]

@ahbon Run options(dplyr.print_max=NULL) (this is the default value for this option)